Friday, June 27, 2008

Mystery

Yesterday I received a letter from our quasi-Cruise director, cousin Cheri (daughter of the guests of honor, Ed and Rae Dell), and found among the fun and news an enthralling, cryptic paragraph:

"There are forty-nine in our party, plus our mascot, which will be revealed on board. How fitting, to have fifty of us for a fiftieth anniversary cruise!"

(There will be an additional twenty-seven friends, classmates, and distant relatives on board.)

But the mascot! What on earth? I've mentally gone through all the pets in our arsenal and found none that would be welcome on a cruise ship. I've tallied up all the inflatable/posable/customizable prank characters we've inducted into our family, human and otherwise, and none seems fitting as our mascot (least of all my beloved five-foot inflatable human skeleton, Jack, who's seen many a family party). We all have a set of plastic Billy Bob teeth from another event; so that's been done. To the best of my knowledge, nobody's been asked to pack a wig or a polyester leisure suit. Everybody's already accounted for. I can't even recall anything suspicious or fitting from Ed and Rae Dell's wedding album, which I just perused last weekend.